I haven’t experienced anything recently that has reminded me of my mortality. This isn’t about death; it’s about me trying to learn more about life. Right now, the love of my life is snoring peacefully behind me as my eyes hurt, and my feet are a little cold; these are minor details, but it’s my life at the given time and moment. When I’m done, I may rush to make to-do lists, categorize my day in my head, decide who to write home to, tell myself I’ll use spring break to get ahead in classes, decide on whether I should get dressed now or try to cuddle, blah blah blah… or  just sit still. Maybe I will engage in personal gratifying activities like counting my scars, playing in my hair, picking my nose, or in other words, I’d really like to just live my life. I don’t wish to spend all my time planning my life because anything can happen and in all reality, I can do anything at any given time because I don’t live my life based on a schedule. I know I sound like a damn self-help book… but whatever! I am the only one capable of writing a book about how to help myself. I have to live my life, learn from my own mistakes, make my own judgments, and do what I want to do because in the end no one else is capable of living my life… just ME.

As a poet, I have a way of interpreting my emotions and when I am experiencing positive energy and emotions of happiness, I experience the moment as a poem.  Dynamics such as the location, company, and music are all contributing factors to the poetic experience.  From the experience, I am able to create a language that I understand based on my experiences. Day by day, I am learning to live my life to the fullest, and live freely. Everyone has that inner capability of just letting go and embracing inner peace. The poem below was inspired while I was watching Prince on TV at the Super Bowl. In my opinion, as long as there is a need to write politically responsible and socially conscious poems, there is a need to write intimate, personal, fun, and celebratory poems.  It is about creating a poetic balance. There are no limitations to writing poetry… it is about expressing yourself and being free.

Prince and Queens

we are homegirls at halftime

pouring rain the singer in do rag in sky blue suit the singer in a tangerine shirt raindrops sequin lens and sparkle screen his face wallpapered girlhoods

oooohhh the do rag been thrown

perm rising up on him a poem

in heels walking tight ass

high notes pouring rain the singer guitar player does the damn thing this is what life feels like up against a wall and all over the scale of possible women can love each other through hell through raspberry smeared lip gloss smacked smart mouths tender headed braided hard rocks

we are not the same woman but the same kind and thank god we don't love the same man but the same kind

the singer so pretty and mimi

talking about hennessey honey

glazed ham we're eating popeye's wings jay-z sells Budweiser we burn our hearts fierce and wounded in reflective injuries

sunday night in harlem game on

and the singer is singing just for us

we move to his voice and somewhere in our hearts doves are crying

-Suheir Hammad

ATTENTION ALL DEF POETRY FANS... SOME OF THE HOTTEST POETS FROM THE HIT HBO SHOW DEF POETRY, WILL BE PERFORMING LIVE IN THE LOS ANGELES AREA FOR ONE NIGHT ONLY. TICKETS ARE SELLING FAST! THIS SHOW IS GUARANTEED TO SELL OUT SO GET YOUR TICKETS NOW!! This live show is being brought to you by The Debbie Allen Dance Academy. Admission is $20. For tickets call (310) 280-9145

Hosted By:
Debbie Allen Dance Academy
When:

Thursday Jun 28, 2007 at 8:30 PM
Where:
Nate Holden Performing Arts Center
4718 Washington Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90019
United States


COME AND BRING YOUR FRIENDS!!!

I feel that poetry has not taken a place in the mainstream, it's completely on the fringes still.  Yes there may be advertisers and mainstream commercial advertisers who may use the form, but the form itself, the art form itself, will always remain on the fringes as any art form will.  It may pop up in mainstream media, but I don't feel like the form itself has taken a place in mainstream society. 

In terms of poets appearing in mainstream media, I feel that there are definitely notions in the poetry community"selling out". I think with any sub-culture/fringe culture, that's going to be the biggest question.  Are you down or are you selling out?  Some people think that taking your poetry on TV is the biggest sell-out ever.  Participating in Def Poetry is a sellout.  We get notes from people because they don't want to be down with that.  And that's fine if that's where you stand and that's where you want to take your art.  I feel like it's dangerous for poets to feel the need to "well, you know, there's not a poet label, so maybe I'll try to get down with a Hip Hop label, or maybe I'll just become more musical or get down with a rock label".   I think that's dangerous because that's not the core essence of your aesthetic or your work.  I think it's just a recipe for disaster. 

The question is how do we define mainstream success? I think that has yet to be defined in the spoken word community, because there is this idea of just being caught in sharing your work with your community versus selling a million albums, which isn't yet a paradigm of the spoken word community.

My biggest influences were probably MC Lyte and Queen Latifah, simply because what these people represented to me were parts of me, especially being a Jamaican American woman. They represented voices that I had never heard before or that I felt that mainstream media never gave enough opportunity before.  I think that's why I was so in love with MC Lyte, because she was a black woman speaking her truth. And that's what I wanted to be.  She was a direct role model to me.  I used to write down all of her lyrics…copy them down word for word, line for line, and then learn them.  I think that was the first step to me becoming a writer and falling in love with writing, falling in love with words, and getting more involved and vested in the whole spoken word thing.

We have a very special addition to Kamilah's blog today... He's a major major Def Poetry alum... and quite the classy and hilarious man... POETRI:

Well, well, well… Today is a good day. Someone hit me up on Myspace and said they saw me on a promo for Def Poetry. Yay! I never make the promos. So, I went to the Def Poetry website and saw me and got all excited and stuff…its Def Poetry time once again. Throw your hands up! Throw your hands up! GO!! GO!! GO!! GO!! If there is one show that has changed the course of my career, if would have to be Def Poetry. If there is one show that has been responsible for putting food on my table and a roof over my family's head…it has got to be DEF POETRY!!! If there are two men that changed my life, besides my daddy and my brother, of course, it would have to be Stan Lathan (the director of Def Poetry on HBO and Def Poetry Jam on Broadway) and Russell Simmons. If those two wouldn't have come to Da' Poetry Lounge one day a loooong time ago and invited me and my ro-dawg, Shihan to do Def Poetry…I would just be a normal sexy guy, instead of a semi-famous sexy poet that has appeared on critically acclaimed shows and is about to be the biggest thing to hit Hollywood since low-fat sliced bread. Ahem…sorry about that…I got carried away. But, I owe all of my carried away-ness to Def Poetry, Stan Lathan, and Russell…and alas…the new season begins this month…and I AM ON THE PROMO!!! YAY!

It is actually hard to believe that we are going on our sixth season. This is a show that fuses so much individual truth into a half-hour show. And then I turn on ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX and other cable shows to watch non-sense shows about Flava Flav and ..:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />New York. And you keep telling me that Poetry isn't mainstream enough. Yet, Def Poetry has been on for six seasons. Yet, Def Poetry has made stars out of unbelievable poets such as Beau Sia, Suheir Hammad, Black Ice, and Georgia M.E. I think you might be scared of all the truth that comes out. Who am I talking to? You! Whoever YOU is? Are? Whatever!!! You know who YOU are? Why deal with the truth when we can sweep it under the rug and look for the next top model or the next great white rapper? Ahhh, sooky, sooky now, lemme stop getting all upset. I am supposed to be happy today because my show…Def Poetry Jam is getting ready to start…yay. Relax Poetri. Take a chill pill.

I am calm.

My peeps. My fam. My homies. My whatever other slang term I can use for people of endearment…make sure that you look for a brother on the sixth episode. That is right. I am gonna be on with the whole Broadway cast. The whole season promises to be hot, I saw a lot of the shows that were taped, but the show that I want you most to see is the one with the chubby, sexy guy that loves GOD. HAHAHAHAHHA. Holla at your boy! I do actually need for you to watch every episode so we can come back for season number 7. So, if you have a Neilson thingamaggi on your TV set (by the way, I have no idea who these people are.) watch every show and TIVO it and watch it thirty times again.
Alright, I am out. I have a million and ten things to do on the computer today. I probably won't get to any of them, but it is important that I fake like I am.

Bless me indeed and enlarge my territory. Keep your hands on me and keep me from my enemies so that I may cause no pain.

Keep it Natural...:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

In terms of definitions, spoken word poetry and Hip Hop go hand in hand.  While there are some people who participate in spoken word poetry who may not consider themselves of the Hip Hop Generation or culture, the fact that the spoken word movement has come at a time when the dominating culture of this generation of participants is Hip Hop is undeniable. So, regardless of what side of the fence you consider yourself on as a poet or artist, you are being affected. The aesthetic is being affected. The venues are being affected.  The form is being affected by Hip Hop culture. 

Kamilah Forbes has been a driving force behind Def Poetry from the beginning, injecting her creativity, expertise, and passion into the show while serving as its Producer.  Here are her thoughts on her early experiences with poetry...

I guess I've always been involved in poetry in some form or fashion.  Really, I used to be an MC when I was in 7^th grade.  That's when it all started with me…my own personal writing.  It's somewhat of a joke now that I look back on it, because I was in 7^th grade and everybody wrote.  Well, at that time, I was just coming into my own, finding my own voice.   And I continued to write throughout high school and college and went through my series of failed bands and groups and working with different DJ's.  The last group I was in we had a really bad show because a fight broke out, and I quit rhyming. But, actually, what lead me into more writing and more poetry was and is my work with the writing and producing of the Hip Hop Theater Festival. Being a playwright and director, I've always been fascinated with the power of language to tell stories and to tell a vast number of very different stories (particularly, stories that are unheard or voices that are not heard enough) And that's a vehicle that Hip Hop provides.  That's the vehicle that spoken word poetry provides.